Story by Tapiwa Machemedze
KUVIMBA Mining House has unveiled a “green belt” initiative targeting to plant at least 100 000 trees at its mines this year under an environmental sustainability programme.
The initiative which will be conducted annually dovetails with the national drive focusing on interlinked interventions such as tree planting.
21-year-old Vongai Chimbunde engages her fellow graduate trainee, Florence Mangai in a deep conversation as they make their way to participate in a programme that will not only help their future but generations beyond.
Unmindful of the scorching heat, they get busy joining their colleagues to relay tufts of grass as part of rehabilitating the environment at Freda Rebecca Mine after the construction of a new Tailings Storage Facility (TSF).
“It is very important to me in terms of maintaining the natural environment since I am doing mining engineering, we have to consider the ecosystem left after we are done with the mining process,” Chimbunde said.
“Well it is important for me as a SHEQ student because we are restoring nature, and we are showing the importance of biodiversity to us as a mining company,” Mangai said.
Unveiled at Freda Rebecca Mine in Bindura this Friday, the sustainability campaign aims to promote environmental stewardship and build environmental resilience across mines under Kuvimba Mining House.
The programme is double fold, interlinked to afforestation while also acting as a critical tool to control soil erosion.
“From our TSF extension, we moved a lot of soil and vegetation, clearly the natural habitat has been disturbed so we have to go some way in restoring the natural environment to what it was, so it’s just the beginning. This year alone, we planted 10 000 trees in January, and we added another 800 last week, and today we are doing 1 000,” said Freda Rebecca Mine managing director, Mr Patrick Shayawabaya.
The local leadership has hailed the initiative as critical in promoting sustainable woodland management practices.
“This is a good programme and all miners should follow this programme so that the environment is sustainable. The old generation is going and we should not leave the environment bare,” said Kuvimba Mining House group CEO, Mr Trevor Barnard.
If successfully implemented, the green belt initiative will be a vital element to feed into the national afforestation programme,” said Chief Chipadze.
